


Trouble is a friend of mine

by myhappyface



Category: Oz - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:52:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhappyface/pseuds/myhappyface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We are a heartbeat away from having no heartbeat at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trouble is a friend of mine

**Author's Note:**

> Season 6 coda. Title from Lenka song of the same name. Beta'd by strangecreature and carlyinrome, <3.

At first, after the riot, Ray sleeps fine. In the rectory, among his brothers, the shared sense of purpose carries him through the worst of it, the sharp memories of his helplessness and his fear.

When Timmy Kirk burns down his home and kills two of his friends, he moves, has to, can't live with any more collateral damage. He gets a small apartment in town, close to the general store but twenty minutes away from Oz. It's worth the commute, he thinks.

Anyway, that's when the dreams start. For a long time, they are of the riot, noise and chaos and his hands bound behind him: a state of fear and trembling before the great and powerful Oz.

For a long time, he thinks the riot is the worst thing that will ever happen to him.

  


Every morning Ray downs coffee with Pete in the break room like it's a race: first one to form a real sentence wins a get out of jail free card.

Gloria arrives ten minutes before her shift is due to start, looking tired and lovely in a way he has always admired. She drinks half a cup of coffee and says, "We've got a problem in Em City."

 _What now_ , he thinks, just as Pete says, "What could it possibly be _this_ time?"

"Some kind of designer drug is circulating through the population. Guerra's was the first overdose I saw, but there have been three more since his. If we don't cut off the supply, someone's going to end up dead."

Gloria's voice is full with anger and drive, something he envies her. He's probably going to die in this place if he doesn't get out soon.

He finishes his coffee and goes to work.

  


He eats lunch with Gloria at her desk. Usually Pete is their third, but today she is with Beecher, counseling serenity for his upcoming trial.

Halfway through his turkey sandwich and a funny story from divinity school, he notices Gloria's attention has wandered, and turns, expecting bloodshed, to see Ryan O'Reily at his father's bedside, face inscrutable.

When he looks back, the set of Gloria's jaw dares him to say something, but he keeps silent. Anything he could tell her, she already knows.

Loving them isn't the hard part. It's learning how much you can and will forgive in the name of that love that fucks you up.

  


In Em City, he finds Miguel sitting at a table with Alonzo Torquemada. He hasn't seen Miguel since Enrique Morales' spartan funeral, but even so, the realization that he's stoned out of his mind is a shock. A scalpel, a noose, the beginning of a bad joke: how many times can one man attempt suicide before he succeeds?

Torquemada is playing cards with a few of the other inmates - he nods to Fiona, who smiles at him - but Miguel doesn't look up; the thread he's tugging loose from his shirt gets more attention than Ray.

Torquemada glances at him, disquieting, uneven gaze, then inclines his head to Miguel. "You want to talk to the priest, sugar?"

His silence is answer enough. There are a thousand ways to die in Oz, and barely any to live.

  


Ray looks up at the knock on his door and sees Miguel, sees the bored expression on the face of the guard who escorted him there. Leaving Miguel to his own devices has brought them both a lot of grief, but he doesn't like to drag inmates to his office. For almost every reason, it is far better to let them come of their own accord.

The main reason being, of course, that inmates who approach you with their problems are a lot less work. They _want_ your help. Miguel is quiet and glassy-eyed, and Ray thinks for a moment of Cloutier in his lonely tomb, bricked up behind cinder blocks six inches thick: nothing gets in, nothing gets out.

The first day, neither of them say a word.

  


"McManus mentioned to me that you're having trouble with the parole board."

(This is a truth, but not a whole one: he had called Tim at a very late hour, and Tim had swore and talked for twenty minutes in an effort to really communicate the wretchedness of the entire affair while Ray had chain-smoked.)

It works, though, because Miguel spits out the name _Ruiz_ like he can't stand to have it inside himself any longer --

" -- and he's sittin' there, sayin' I give Latinos a bad name, sayin' shit like he ain't never gonna let me out of this place -- "

"So, what, you're gonna fuck yourself up on drugs, and that'll show him? Use your _head_ , Miguel, come on."

"You don't understand, you -- you weren't anywhere around and all I had was Torquemada shovin' that shit in my face and, and fucking _sniffing_ me, there wasn't anything else for me to _do_."

"You've got choices _now_ , though. If you give him up, Querns can put you in protective custody, clear Torquemada out of Em City."

It's a pretty good offer, all things considered: Querns is eager to shine up his reputation when it comes to being tough on drugs, and putting a stop to the trafficking of a dangerous drug will look good the next time Miguel comes up for parole.

If it's not reluctance to rat on Torquemada keeping them at this impasse, he's made a pretty big miscalculation.

"Is there something -- Miguel, is there some reason you're not leaping at this opportunity?"

They both twist in the silence for a while, but Ray is a patient man, at least in comparison.

"He's all I got in here, man," Miguel finally says. "Him. Those -- fuckin' d-tabs. I testify against him, get him moved over to Unit B, whatever, I'm still gonna be _here_. Might as well be back in solitary. At least there all I had to worry about was the hacks kicking the shit outta me."

"I know you don't mean that," Ray says, "you can't," because he remembers Miguel's bruised ribs, and he remembers Gloria taking him aside at the start of his shift, Pete at her shoulder, and he remembers thinking, _Oh Christ, he's dead_.

"Look, we'll get you into protective custody, arrange for more family visits -- "

"What, seeing my mother twice a month is gonna solve all my problems? Have you met my mother?"

" -- maybe change your work detail -- "

"I _like_ working in the hospital."

 _A drug addict in a hospital, that's a good idea_ , Ray thinks but does not say, and continues, "You could work here. You could be my assistant."

He does not mean to say this, did not plan for it, but once it's out it seems like the best and worst possible solution. He will see Miguel every day.

"I'd just -- what, answer phones and shit?"

"Answer phones, do some typing. Be out of Em City for a couple of hours every day. Okay?"

Miguel making eye contact is the first sign that he hasn't overplayed his hand. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Ray lets out a breath and sits back, palms his cigarettes, wants one pretty badly but doesn't like to smoke in front of the inmates, not since the ban. No point in being mean.

Miguel sees it, though, and laughs as he stands to go.

"Shit. That was almost the hardest part, you know? Hadn't had a cigarette in almost two years, but the first thing I did when I busted out was buy a pack. Got the taste for it again. Nicotine withdrawal in solitary, that'll drive you fuckin' crazy."

  


Ray has stopped dreaming of the riot, but feels no more in control than he had in that room, sitting next to Diane Whittlesly with blood on his face and none in his hands. His dreams are all of Miguel's bloody hands, clenching around a scalpel, knotting his bedsheet into a noose. Ray cannot remember a time when he did not love him.


End file.
